On this date in...

1783...American troops gather at what is now Parson Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue in Queens to celebrate their victory over the British in the Revolutionary War.

1962...A printers' union dispute shuts down the city's daily newspapers, leading to a 114-day strike. Several papers do not survive.

1980...Rock music icon John Lennon is shot and killed by Mark David Chapman outside Lennon's Dakota apartment on the Upper West Side. The former Beatle called New York his home in his final years, and the city honors him by naming his favorite section of Central Park after one of his songs: Strawberry Fields. Chapman is sentenced in 1981 to 20 years to life in prison, where he remains to this day.